Evolution And Our Children

Robert Atkinson, Searcy, Arkansas

Recently I was buying a book for my children and happened to notice a particular volume of the Little Golden Book Series published by Simon and Schuster in New York. The volume was entitled From Then To Now and had an intriguing picture of a huge dinosaur glowering at an airplane flying over his head. A glance inside the book confirmed the suspicion which the title had kindled. It taught organic evolution in its rankest form.

It has been a matter of great concern to Christian parents that evolution has been taught in our state universities. It is a matter of record that it can be found in text books of our colleges and high schools. It is not uncommon to find stories of "ape men" in elementary readers in some places. Now the theory has been written and illustrated to appeal to preschool children and children of elementary school age. This invasion into the last domain of the formative age of children should be a matter of further concern.

Following is a series of quotations from the book Then To Now which illustrate the uncompromising nature of the teaching which it does.

"Many, many millions of years ago our earth was all water and bare rock. There was no life. The first animals on our earth were one-celled animals... After many, many, many years passed, animals began to have many cells. But no backbones. ... And all of them lived in the water. There were not any animals on land."

Several pages later, under the picture of a huge gorilla hanging from vines we have this quotation:

"Man is a primate. Gorillas, monkeys, and chimpanzees are primates. Most primates have five fingers and five toes; their eyes are in front. They have large brains. Most of them can stand like man. Most primates live in the jungle, usually in trees. As the earth grew colder the primates of long ago moved to where it was warm."

Then, over a picture of an apelike man, on the page opposite the gorilla, there is this paragraph:

'Finally there was man. As time went by, man learned how to keep fires going. He lived much of the time in caves..."

The presentation of the evolutionary theory as fact, without the least hint that it is not the universally accepted view, is designed to mislead parents and bias children. This tactic is old but effective. It is used by all whose theories will not stand the test of investigation and the light of truth. But possibly we can expect nothing better from a group of men who make a whole race out of a "Heidelberg Jaw" whereas God made but one woman out of a rib.

Christian parents and Bible Teachers would do well to meet the continuing and increasing efforts of evolutionists by frequently reading and telling the Biblical account of creation. "Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law: And that their children Which have not known anything, may hear, and learn to fear the Lord your God..." (Deut. 31:12,13)

Whenever possible, Bible Teachers should acquaint themselves with the glaring failures of the evolutionary theory and the appalling lack of evidence for all of the theorizing. For example, the evolutionist cannot fill the gap between the vertebrate and the invertebrate, between man and the anthropoid apes. The fossils, from the earliest to the latest, upon which the evolutionists rely so heavily (and from which they argue in circles) show no half made creatures. Instead, all of them are perfectly formed which argues special creation, not evolution.

Christian parents can select the reading matter of small children and they should do so carefully. They should not be so unwise as to read books like From Then To Now to their children in the belief that it will make no impression. Early impressions are deep and lasting.

Kenneth de Courcy has said:

"If we want our children to behave like apes let us by all means teach them the poor thesis that they are only evolved specimens of them. If we want them to behave like pilgrims moving towards the Celestial City, then let us teach them that they are God's highest special creative act and that in Christ they can become Kings and Priests of the most High God."